Intelligent Design

Philanthropist, world-renowned eye surgeon James Gills co-authored two ID-friendly books Darwin under the microscope and The Mysterious Epigenome and spearheaded an ID-friendly project related to the epigenome. Named after him is the James P. Gills Professorship in Opthalmology at Johns Hopkins University. Here is a nice narrative of Dr. Gills: TARPON SPRINGS – The blue-masked man bends forward in his rolling chair, back stiff, eyes pressed to microscope. On his surgical table lies a woman wrapped in blue like a package, except for naked right eye, lid peeled back, pupil widely dilated, bathed in light. ¶ He is busy with two slender instruments. One obliterates a lens, opaque as butter. The other suctions out milky debris. He slips a tube Read More ›

Sometimes, it is necessary to shine a spotlight on behaviour that is beyond the pale of reasonable civil discourse. Especially if, after repeated attempts to call for correction, we see instead the blog owner — here, EL of TSZ — and others insistently pretending that such falls within the circle of reasonable freedom of expression. Here, then, are relevant excerpts from davehooke in his post: Sure, ID proponents are passionate about the tenets of their faith . . . As Kierkegaard noted, there is always an unbridgeable emptiness for the theist, the “leap of faith.” So no matter how much reason one applies to religion, religious belief is at heart irrational. Those who attempt to trowel reason over the gap Read More ›

An international team of scientists has published an article in Nature magazine, suggesting that oxygen began accumulating in the atmosphere at least three billion years ago. The team’s findings raise a troubling question for Darwinian evolutionists: how did the exquisitely complex metabolism of oxygenic photosynthesis arise so soon after the dawn of life? The team arrived at its conclusions by studying the ratios of two isotopes of chromium – chromium-52 and chromium-53 – in the world’s oldest soils: former soils preserved by burial under rocks in Kwazulu-Natal Province, South Africa, dating back to 2.95 billion years before the present. Because chromium-53 is slightly more soluble when oxidized than chromium-52, the team was able to infer the composition of oxygen in Read More ›

It seems we can now put together at least a draft outline composite response to the UD pro-darwinism essay challenge of a year ago, based on Jerad’s remarks at 70 in the one-year anniversary thread, and a key concession by EL at 149 in the same. In the interests of moving the discussion on the merits forward [I am open to improved drafts or a full form submission . . . ], first here is the Smithsonian chart of the Tree of Life, the context: Now, PART I: ____________ EL, 149: >> “As yet we have no empirically supported naturalistic theory of abiogenesis.” >> ____________ For PART II, we will need to highlight that Jerad is responding to some earlier remarks Read More ›

Popular Science’s online arm has just shut down its comments section. Guess why?

A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to “debate” on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.

Do you question the scientific consensus on a subject? Do you think the consensus is fundamentally flawed? Too far-reaching in its scope? More confident than it should be? Then Popular Science has a message for you: shame. SHAME!

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Today marks a full year since I issued an open challenge to Darwinists to ground their theory and its OOL extension and root, in light of actually observed capabilities of blind watchmaker mechanisms of chance and necessity through an essay I would host here at UD. The pivot of the challenge is the modern version of the very first Icon of Evolution, Darwin’s Tree of Life (which in an incomplete form is the ONLY image in original editions of Origin of Species), here typified by a case from the Smithsonian:   I first did so in an exchange thread, specifically responding to Jerad, then headlined it some days later. In lieu of prompt serious replies, I set up Wikipedia articles Read More ›

David Penny and co workers are out with another confirmation of evolution. In a Darwin’s God exclusive, Penny assures us that there is no question about the fact of evolution, but from his Popperian perspective, it is always important to put forward testable models. And the result, as usual, is that evolution wins yet again. One result, from Column 7 of Table 2 of the paper, shows that the probability that the proteins in question could have arisen by chance is 1.94 x 10^-19. And that is just one of their many tests. In other words, evolution is pretty much a done deal. As they conclude: “The analyses establish that some form of ancestral convergence is occurring.” There’s only one problem: Read More ›